06/06/2006

Comics As Art: We Told You So

Fantagraphics Books, one of the niftiest indy comic publishers around, is celebrating 30 years of still managing to survive with the publication of Comics As Art: We Told You So. Written by Tom "the book is late because I suck" Spurgeon, it is an oral history due out in the fall. Let us cut/paste (and slightly trim) from their press materials, shall we?

Comics As Art: We Told You So tells of Fantagraphics Books'
key role in helping build and shape an art movement around a
discredited, ignored and fading expression of Americana the way
insiders share the saga with one another other: in anecdotal form, in
the words of the people who lived it and saw it happen. ... More
than a corporate history or a fond look back, Comics As Art: We Told You So makes the warts-and-all case for Fantagraphics Books' position near the heart of the modern reclamation of the comics art form.

Also? You can SEE WHAT THEIR MOTHERS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THEM!!! Annoyed as I am to learn that it's not coming out this summer, I love this book already.

What they're doing with the preview is all sorts of brilliant. The only downside to the preview is that they're posting the roughs
sans completed captions. I'll have to wait until the book is released -LATE -
to find out who is behind the Shot ... in back! Must pull destruct lever! page of emerging creator hilarity.

I'm very curious about the 'warts and all' bit. 'Cause, you know, you hear things. It'll be interesting to see if stuff you've heard (but have no idea if it's true) shows up in this book. I'm also curious to see if they'll be up front about the role of Eros (so very not a work safe link) in keeping Fantagraphics alive in the early days. Sometimes when a corp creates it's official history, it likes to clean things up a bit for purposes of Respectability.

*** I'm pretty sure just typing the words "Los Bros" does not violate the terms of the restraining order...